crownsy. The Rundown was better than 300, in my honest opinion. I'm fine with some good ol fashioned fun. Some goofy action and such. That's fine. I think my beef with 300 was that it took itself way too seriously. It thought it was Braveheart, but it was just a bunch of really bad comicbook lines over a bunch of mindless action.
If we're just talking about seeing a movie with some good ol fashioned action and fun, I can handle that. It's not like I'm an elitist. I liked "Don't Mess with the Zohan", which is considered a pretty bad movie. In fact, if given the option right now to watch "Don't Mess with the Zohan" (goofy comedy and dumb action) or "300", (pretty boring movie with some nice visuals)... I'm going to go with "Don't Mess with the Zohan". At least that movie knew it was stupid.
I mean when you eliminate plot, dialogue, storyline, character development... and merely focus a movie on eye candy... it just ends up kind of boring to me. It's just a personal opinion. Yes, I admit the eye candy in "300" was pretty great. But heck, I'll admit the eye candy in "What Dreams May Come" was pretty impressive too. It didn't make it any less boring. It was a movie about Robin Williams going through heaven and hell to save his wife. But it was really just an excuse for them to have some pretty images flashing on the screen. I don't see the difference between that movie and "300"... except that 300 has more testosterone and violence associated with their mindless visuals.
The Rundown was better than 300? Really? Have you been hanging out with Josh Howard lately? Maybe chilled with the Birdman a little bit?
Yeah, actually. Not to say the Rundown was very good, but it had a couple fun moments. I liked the pygmy beating up on the Rock. I liked some of the humor. I liked Christopher Walken. Good fun little movie with some action. But just to back up my opinion (which is just an opinion, of course)... The Rundown got a 59 rating on Metacritic. Higher than 300's 51 rating.
And to comment on the person who mentioned "The Rock" (the movie starring NIck Cage and Sean Connery... not to be confused with the actor who starred in The Rundown). "The Rock" was great. It's practically an action classic. Again, I'm perfectly fine with dumb action movies like The Rock, True Lies, even Con Air, because they have a good mix of action, story and character even if it was silly and unbelievable. I also had no problem watching action movies that didn't have explosions like Braveheart, The Patriot, Gladiator even "The Last Samurai". But 300 was lacking in pretty much every major movie category necessity other than mindless action. Didn't care about the plot, didn't care about the characters, thought every line was a throwaway line, throught it took itself way too seriously, thought it dragged at points, there was no humor, didn't care when the people died... Just in general it was boring to me.
Again, hopefully they don't blow it with "The Watchmen", because I don't think that's a film that can rely just on the visuals and action.